he said, hesitatingly; “perhaps the Harpies have flown over my table.” — It sometimes happens nowadays that a gentle, sober, retiring man becomes suddenly mad, breaks the plates, upsets the table, shrieks, raves, and shocks everybody — and finally withdraws, ashamed, and raging at himself — whither? for what purpose? To famish apart? To suffocate with his memories? — To him who has the desires of a lofty and dainty soul, and only seldom finds his table laid and his food prepared, the danger will always be great — nowadays, however, it is extraordinarily so.

Thrown into the midst of a noisy and plebeian age, with which he does not like to eat out of the same dish, he may readily perish of hunger and thirst — or, should he nevertheless finally “fall to,” of sudden